Sultanahmet Suites Istanbul

Sultanahmet Suites must be avoided by any tourists at any cost. The owner of this property mistreat and threaten guests. He and his wife expose privacy of guests on a public travel site - very strange people. They are unethical and hostile.

In August this year, I stayed at this place. The owner seemed mentally unstable and was having difficulty managing his anger. He would yell at and threaten guests when things did not go his way and was irritated. Later I wrote about him on a travel site. Immediately after that, my phone rang. It was 1 a.m. at night. I answered the phone, and heard a loud voice shouting at me. It was the owner of Sultanahmet Suites. "I tell you something. I will go to your embassy. I have all the copies of your e-mails and everything. You only have 48 hours to clean up what you have written about me to tripadvisor. So you either do that, or I will be a trouble for you." This is a tape-recorded message he left on my answering machine. His wife also sent me a threatening e-mail. Then the owner and his wife resorted to dirty tactics. They made up a story about me and my boyfriend and exposed it as private lives of us on a public forum. But forum participants reacted as follows:

"This is a very serious invasion of privacy by a Hotel Manager into the private lives of hotel's guests. Ladies and Gentlemen, It seems that if you want your private lives be exposed in public forums, you should stay at Sultanahmet Suites a couple of days. This is a very sad affair. "

"To violate the privacy of guests is the last straw for any hotel managers, and I certainly will not mention this property to prospective visitors nor will I speak positively of it in the future."

"The owners of Sultanahmet Suites do not have the capacity, skills, training, and especially goodwill to run an establishment be it in Sultanahmet or anywhere else."

For details of the threats and other unethical misconducts committed by the owners, please read tripadvisor Istanbul forum, "Don't stay at Sultanahmet Suites" and "Busy-Retired - Sultanahment Suites".

Again, please keep away of this place.

It looks like I must post another review to respond to Denizlove’s comments. They are bunk. I am not the management of Sultanahmet Suites nor did they ask me to write a review either here or on TripAdvisor. I wrote them because I enjoyed my stay there very much. The accommodations, location AND management were very pleasant. I can accept that Denizlove may have not liked the managers, but the rest of what she says is simply not true. A quick look at Google Maps will show you the location – about 300 meters from the Blue Mosque.

A Google search on “Denizlove” will also show 296 hits, on a wide variety of websites, each reviewing the same hotel, and in each trashing Sultanahmet Suites. There is clearly something else going on here besides legitimate reviewing.

As you see, josephine009 = the Sultanahmetsuites owner's wife is SERIOUSLY UNETHICAL. The pair, she and her husband, need an immediate professional help to correct their bad attitude.

First of all, this travbuddy "REVIEW" SITE is NOT a A PLACE FOR SELF-PROMOTION OF PROPERTY OWNERS. It is VERY UNETHICAL that the OWNERS of this property show up on this site and ADVERTISE THEIR OWN APARTMENT HERE.

In addition, it is very MEAN and NASTY to INSULT and THREATEN GUESTS who had written critical reviews.

The level of their abnormality is obvious from the strange and funny writing below written by the wife. Again, they need an urgent professional psychiatric help.

The owners are extremely unprofessional, and do not have any knowledge, skill and capability , or any courtesy, discipline and politeness needed for hotel management. To make it even worse, THE OWNER has extremely short temper and YELLS AT GUESTS . He HARASSES and INTIMIDATES them. Then when a guest wrote about this on tripadvisor, the owner and his wife repeatedly called / e-mailed the guest and friend at their home and workplace, and REPEATEDLY THREATENED THE GUESTS. When the guest refused to delete the review, THE OWNERS EXPOSED PRIVACY INFORMATION of the GUESTS ON THE WEB. Instead of apologizing, the OWNERS CONTINUE TO INSULT THE GUESTS all over the web to date.

These people are extremely unethical and potentially harmful, so avoid this terrifying place unless you love to be harassed and privacy info exposed on the web. In case you accidentally end up here, NEVER LEAVE ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION, such as your mobile number. OTHERWISE, THEY WILL USE THOSE INFORMATION TO THREATEN YOU, AND EVENTUALLY EXPOSE THOSE INFORMATION ON THE WEB.

The shameful conducts of the owners do not stop here. When new guests arrive, they talk really badly about the guest who wrote a critical review, in order to gain sympathy. Of course, they hide and deny all their wrongdoings, such as harassment and threatening, and only tell their own story, and insult the said guest in a strangely defamatory way. (Some guests and tripadvisor members have written about insults and defamation committed by the owners.)

Then THE OWNERS SOLICIT RAVE REVIEWS FROM NEWLY ARRIVING GUESTS to put them on tripadvisor. So all the TRIPADVISOR REVIEWS, which the owners are attempting to make you read, are FAKE and FORCED ONES. The owners also copy those coerced reviews on other sites all over the web for advertisement and self-promotion, disguising as guests.

The owners write self-promotion on their own, too. The below are examples of those:

Example 1: Solicited review originally posted on tripadvisor and then copied on another site - "Best value for money in Istanbul! ...............We would certainly come again. " Posted By : 85.100.244.59 (this is the wife herself) On Monday, February 18, 2008

Example 2: Self-promotion - "Great Location and best Value it was better than staying hotel room we had a big bedroom big living room and fully kitchen Thank you for everything we had a great time we are looking forward to stay at Sultanahmetsuites again Posted By: Abby Fletcher (85.103.68.×××) (this is the wife herself), on Friday, August 10, 2007 (Abby Fletcher = the owner's wife of Sultanahmetsuites)

The owners recently posted strange writings, which contained insults, such as the one posted here by the wife, on 3 different threads in tripadvisor istanbul forum. Those postings were immediately deleted by tripadvisor because the seriously abnormal nature. THANK YOU VERY MUCH TRIPADVISOR!!

Tripadvisor Istanbul Forum participants greatly appreciated the removal of the wife's offensive contributions. They hate to hear anything about this controversial and notorious apartment. One participant even beggede, "OH, NO MORE POSTING ABOUT SULTANAHMET SUITES PLEASE!!!" They also abhor to see the insults and defamation the wife keeps writing in poor, low-level English and vulgar language.

Recently Sultanahmetsuites owners copied and pasted solicited tripadvisor reviews to yet another travel site as self-promotion. The administrator of the site confirmed that those "reviews" were all coming from the owners, deleted all of them, and informed us of the shameful conduct of Sultanahmetsuites. Thank you very much administrator! Another excellent action here.

So, never believe those solicited reviews posted by the owners by themselves. Never stay at this dreadful place. It is a real nightmare!

Please allow me to remind you once again that Sultanahmet Suites (a.k.a. Sultanahmetsuites) must be avoided at any costs. Here are tips that I think are beneficial to other travelers.

Sultanahmetsuites offers nothing but a room. No staff, no service. Just check-in and cleaning. Everything else must be done by yourself. Therefore, this building is a very LOW value for money. Yet, if nothing happens, you will be OK if what you are looking for is just a place to stay. But, once something happens, this place turns a nightmare. The owner starts yelling. He harasses and insults you. And when you go home and post an honest review, that will become a start of yet another horror story!! The owner will immediately call your home, keep on yelling, and threaten you over and over to delete the review. Then his wife will send you a threatening e-mail. Then the two will call your friend to repeat their threats and harassments. If you ignore their threats, they will expose your privacy information on the internet. Do you think this is a modern horror fiction? Unfortunately, this is not a horror fiction or a joke! This is the true incident that happened to me, and that could possibly happen to you once you stay there.

Why did I make the most stupid mistake in this world and stayed at this dreadful place? Well, it is because I read tripadvisor reviews - all of them rave. Later it was revealed that all those reviews had been written because one person – the wife of the Sultanahmetsuites owner - had asked all over to write positive reviews for her. I came to know this because the wife herself admitted it on tripadvisor. She confessed that she had been asking former guests to write good reviews for her. So, nobody but the wife herself confirmed that those reviews on tripadvisor are forced ones. It means they are all quite unreliable. I was silly enough to believe those fake reviews and wrong claims in them, and stayed at Sultanahmetsuites. As a result, I got screwed. I never imagined that, at Sultanahmetsuites, an ordeal – the yelling, shouting, insults, threatening of the owner and his wife - awaited me. I can never describe enough how terrible it was to receive such abnormal and horrendous treatment!

By the way, Sultanahmetsuites appears on various websites in disguise, pretending "a guest" and "a friend of the owners". They use different identities, such as, "josephine009", "JOSEPH13", "Anastasia_NYC", "gelincik", "aylinjoy" "josehine009", "behonest" and "Abby Fletcher". They use these pseudonyms to promote their own business and establishment. They probably created much more names, and asked others to create pseudonyms as a one-time poster, with “OldBanker“ being one of them.

Once the wife of Sultanahmetsuites posted this:
"I stayed at Sultanahmetsuites .... had a very positive experience Service was warm, welcoming, professional, the location is very good Enjoyed my stay here very much The hotel had a friendly family atmosphere and the manager, Mr joy, was a gentleman." (Source: Fodor's, Author: gelincik, Date: 12/06/2007, 08:01 am)

When I challenged her "spoofing", she wrote:
"Denizlove, I am not a owner or Staf of Sultanahmetsuites you can not blame people like that I dont want to any discuss with you I just wanted to send my travel experience and I recommend Sultanahmetsuites all travellers".
lolololololo ... Nobody can write this extremely funny rambling except for gelincik = the wife of Sultanahmetsuites! :) This is what she always does on numerous websites. So, you can lololol, too, but be careful at the same time. Positive reviews have been posted all over the net, written by these same persons, the owners of Sultanahmetsuites. Don’t be misled by their false claims, like I was!

In addition, whenever a negative review is posted, Sultanahmetsuites immediately posts a self-written positive review as a counterattack. Typically, they first go through each negative point raised, such as the long distance to Sultanahmet and the precarious neighborhood, and deny them, and write an opposite claim. Then they attack reviewers who posted negative reviews. The pattern is always the same, so it is easy to tell for everyone. A genuine tourist would never dismiss or attack other reviewers in the strangely desperate and nasty ways used by these owners.

It is funny that the pattern is adopted by the writing posted below on Jan 27, 2008, albeit in a much more modest manner than, say, "gelincik" (the wife). I am glad that this person was lucky and nothing happened to her at Sultahahmetsuites. What intrigues me, though, is that her review is similar to tripadvisor reviews generated by the owners. Like many reviews written by the owners, this one also contains the three core items - denial of negative factors, praise of three things (apartment, neighborhood and the owner), and attack on other reviewers. So, same pattern. The owners basically write things like, "I was worried because of xxx, but we were pleasantly surprised","people who post negative reviews are over exaggerating." "Sultanahmetsuites was much better than xxx, better than a normal hotel (= not true)", "neighborhood is real Turkey, and much better than xxx", "owner is very kind (= bullshxt)", , "but if you are xxx (like a lazy dependent traveler who always needs help), you are not the type for Sultanahmesuites.", "not everyone fits Sultanahmetsuites". These owners reviews are not genuine tourist reviews, of course. They are not tourists. But they write them to self-promote their property. In other words, these people have no intention to offer a useful review to travbuddy members. They just need to distort the facts, and cover up their arrogant behaviors. I am deeply concerned that they will repeat the same behaviors to other people, and someone will fall prey.

All the "awful things about the hotel and management" written in the past reviews reflect truths that happened at Sultanahmetsuites. Those reviews sound awful, of course, because they describe what the owners did, and what owners did was really awful.

The review below says, "we hesitated booking this hotel because we had seen several reviews" and then says, "I am not sure what her issue is or was, …". Hmmm... isn't this person contradicting herself? If she has seen several reviews, she must have read about the harassments and threats. That should be why she hesitated booking this apartment. Otherwise, if she really didn't know what the issue was, why should she hesitate? This contradiction comes from the owners' need to write two things at the same time. They want to say, 1. "one person is writing several reviews! It's a problem! We dont like it!", and 2. "So, let's lie that we don't know what the issue is, because that will undermine the credibility of the reviewer and could make her look stupid!" This is exactly the same old pattern that the owners always use. One time, they wrote "the reviewer needs a professional help". They love this kind of insults.

I reiterate the issue once again. The root cause of the issue is that the owner could not control his temper, and treated a guest and her friend very badly, in a very rude and violent way. His wife once admitted, "my husband was not nice to you". But now they are pretending as if they do not know why the guest is so angry. They are pretending as if they did not do anything wrong against the guest. This vividly depicts their personality, and shows how you will be treated once you stay at this apartment and face troubles.

Usually guests would never write lengthy reviews unless something goes really, really wrong. Sultanahmetsuites should know that. The issue belongs to them. They are the “culprits” of the entire trouble. They not only harassed guests and created a problem, but screwed up everything by their repeated threats against the customers to delete reviews, and by refusing to apologize.

By the way, let me correct some misleading and inaccurate information in a sales pitch of Sultanahmetsuites. First, the district where apartment is located, “Kadriga”, is not convenient for tourists. It is far away from Sultanahmet and other major tourist destinations. You need to climb a really steep hill and walk 15- 20 minutes to reach tram stations and main streets. It gets too expensive, if you take a taxi every day and night. Also, "a 300 meter walk to all of the sights of the Sultanahmet areas" is far from the fact. Why do they keep making up stories like this? Or, is this their wishful thinking?

Secondly, at Sultanahmetsuites, there are NO friendly people. The owner and his wife are the kind of people I described above. There is nobody else in the building. The apartment hires no staff at all. So, it feels cold, isolated, desolated and unfriendly. They obviously want to save costs, but they should not be this stingy and sacrifice well-being of guests. The building is unmanned, so it is too risky and dangerous. It seriously lacks safety and security.

Finally, “more like we imagined “real” Istanbul to be”. Yes, this part is true. When you open the bedroom curtain, the view is the apartment next door. You can directly see inside the apartment, and see a man snoring on the floor. You can also say hello to a woman hanging laundry from a window. You can almost shake hands with her!

OK, I think I said enough about this place. So, again, be careful and make your own informed decisions! Don't repeat my mistake! Otherwise, you will have to engage in an everlasting fight against the owners in order to prevent them from harassing and harming other travellers.

If you like to stay at a nice apartment in Istanbul, I heard Galata Residence is quite nice. It has wonderful panoramic views across the Golden Horn to the Old City from some rooms and the restaurant on the roof, which offers live music. There is a café, too. I hope you all enjoy Turkey by selecting a right place to stay. :)

This hotel in old Istanbul was recommended to us by a hotelkeeper in Goreme on our last trip to Turkey and I am really glad we took his advice and tried it this trip. We have stayed before in the tourist area just up the hill from this little apartment style place, and while we enjoyed it there, staying at Sultanahmet Suites was more relaxing and fun. If felt much more like we imagined “real” Istanbul to be, but had all the conveniences and friendly people.
We hesitated booking this hotel because we had seen several reviews like the one above that have been posted all over the net, written by this same person, who had awful things to say about the hotel and management. I am not sure what her issue is or was, but we were very happy with both the hotel owners and the hotel.
Don’t try this hotel if you are disabled, there is no elevator. The rooms, however, are wonderful, with a decent kitchen at one end of the “living room” and great beds. We really liked being able to go outside and pick up food and drink to prepare that was from shops only a few steps away. A taxi stand is also a short block away. The neighborhood seemed a little dark at night, but when we walked around in the evenings we found it lively, friendly and safe. It is only about a 300 meter walk to all of the sights of the Sultanahmet area of Istanbul and about the same in the other direction to the fish markets and restaurants of Kumkapi. There are also several good local restaurants within the neighboring two or three blocks.
I highly recommend this little hotel, especially if you are staying for a few days.

It looks like I must write again, with some reluctance, to respond to OldBanker’s comments.

First of all, I hope OldBanker will listen to and accept diversified opinions of other people, instead of imposing his own individual views on others. He must understand that different people have different views and experiences. People's experiences and impression can vary dramatically even at exactly the same apartment. One reason can be that some people, including hotel managers, change how they treat people depending on who they deal with - it could depend on the age, nationality, social status, wealthiness, among others, of the other end.

We were not as fortunate as OldBanker. We were yelled at, harassed, insulted and intimidated by the owner of Sultanahmet Suites. Then, after I wrote about this on tripadvisor, the owner called me at home after midnight, shouted and threatened me.

He said, "I tell you something. I will go to your embassy. I have all the copies of your e-mails and everything. You only have 48 hours to clean up what you have written about me to tripadvisor. So you either do that, or I will be a trouble for you." (tape-recorded)

Then he and his wife persistently called my friend at work. They kept calling him about a dozen times, and repeatedly harassed and threatened him. They terrified my friend with a threat of a lawsuit. My friend offered to talk and waited for the owner, but the owner never showed up. The owner has never apologized to date.

(For details, please read Tripadvisor Istanbul forum "Don't stay at Sultanahmet Suites", and Lonely Planet thorn tree travel forum "AVOID Sultanahmet Suites in Istanbul". )

The wife once admitted her husband's misconducts in her e-mail, but she now denies them. She lies that the critical reviews are "very erroneous" and writes, "only one single person had a problem with Sultanahmetsuites That means she is says lie". What an illogical, unprofessional and laughable statement! It is a Marketing 101 that, when there is one complaint, there are 100 dissatisfied customers behind it! Therefore, a hotel manager should serious worry if there is a complaint. She should care for every single guest, especially when a guest had problems with the hotel. But this particular apartment, Sultanahmet Suites, does not seem to care. The owner was furious from the beginning that a guest ever complained about his bad attitudes. Then his wife tries to hide everything, and calls the guests liars and attempts to shut them up. It is a real disaster for them.

Well,what do you think about these behaviors by the owner of Sultanahmet Suites? Again, a hotel manager should never abuse guests, insult guests, and call and threaten guests even after they go home, I think. But those are what the owner of this apartment did to us. Obviously, the problem is not about whether we liked the owner or not. It is far more serious than that. I wonder if there is anyone in this world who is able to like a person who treats you like dirt. Nobody. Everyone wants to be treated with respect and warmth. We should never allow someone to abuse / threaten us and get away with it.

No matter what OldBanker might say, nobody can change what happened in the past. Nobody can change our experiences because they are the facts. Like OldBanker, we also have a wishful thinking. We also wish our experiences with Sultanahmet Suites were just "bunk", or a bad dream! Unfortunately, our dreadful experiences are all real. The owner shouted at us and threatened us over and over. Whether you like it or not, nobody can go back to the past and change the dreadful behaviors of the owner of this apartment. Nobody can change the facts.

By the way, OldBanker should read and reflect on the following message written by a tripadvisor member. It was posted after some people attacked and denigrated reviews of others:

"Whether it's Sultanahmet Suites or a hotel, people have really good experiences and pretty bad experiences. ... BOTH POSITIONS ARE VALID. And no one's post should be attacked or denigrated if/when the remarks contradict one's own experience!"

Also, Google search on “OldBanker” will show 217 hits, on a wide variety of websites, each reviewing the same hotel, and in each trashing other tourists who had written critical reviews. There is clearly something else going on here besides legitimate reviewing. It smells.

Last year, there was a deluge of glowing reviews of Sultanahmet Suites posted on tripadvisor and other sites, and also this year to a smaller extent. Those, as a result of active solicitation and self-writing by the owners. Some of them were deleted, as the owners were spotted writing two identical reviews under two different pseudonyms.

As for the location, this apartment is located at the bottom of a very, very steep hill. Going up the hill is like climbing a mountain. I am not old yet, but it was quite unpleasant to climb up the hill everytime I went to Sultanahmet. A lot of sweating and muscle pain! It is especially hard during summer when it gets really hot and humid. Checking the distance on a map is one thing, but actually trekking up the steep hill in the punishing heat (or punishing snow) is another story. It's NOT easy. It takes about 15 - 20 minutes to get to major destinations.

Located in Kadirga, vertically far from Sultanahmet, nothing near it but residential buildings and small pop & mom shops. I did not mind the poor location and it is so far from everything or that it was difficult to find or the room had very limited natural light or it was not a cost-efficient accommodation or the neighborhood was boring and precarious.

I could not believe that they don't change bed linens and towels, the view was nowhere, and the manager was evasive and rude. It was a disgustingly unwelcoming place. This apartment is way overpriced for what it cannot offer. I DO NOT recommend. Look elsewhere.

It bothers me that the owners (husband and wife) have obvious track records of faking reviews on this website and others to boost their business by deceiving readers. This apartment is mediocre at best, they don't deserve special ratings, let alone the perfect reviews. These people are asking around to post perfect reviews and compliments on tripadvisor. OK, I understand they have to eat and survive. But to aggressively solicit compliments and to go and threaten those who write otherwise .... it shows the hidden, but true, immoral nature of the owners.

This was our second stay at Sultanahmet Suites and while we were happy before, we were even more so this time. We stayed at a new building that the owners acquired that is right at the foot of Sfendon Wall, which is the outside of the original wall of the ancient Hippodrome. The center of Old Istanbul is only a five minute walk away. The new building is a completely rebuilt Ottoman home that contains four fresh and modern apartments. Having a separate living room and kitchen besides the bedroom makes a multi-day stay much more pleasant.

We peeked into one of the rooms in the original building and it looked even better than before. There is also now a modern coffee shop/restaurant in the first building that we used twice for breakfast. The room rates seem to be up a bit since our last stay, but they are still a bargain compared to anything of similar quality.

There seems to be some sort of vendetta by someone against this facility on the Internet. Those reviews are pretty easy to identify but having now stayed twice in these suites I can discredit them completely. But this IS an “apart” hotel, not a full service one. There is no midnight room service (although the owner did fix us a late night snack on our late arrival). There are also no elevators (less of an issue in the new building) or swimming pools. But if you are OK with that, you will find one of these buildings to be a great place to “live” during your stay in Istanbul.